Needle in the Hay
by leradny
Summary: Parents, soldiers, dead-eye shots. These are the things they have in common. SazhLightning
1. Parents

Note: ARGH. I accidentally replaced this chapter while updating. Luckily, I'd emailed a hard-copy to myself! ALWAYS EMAIL COPIES OF YOUR CHAPTERS! Even if they're not quite finished so the last part will be slightly different.

**-  
Needle in the Hay**  
_Parents_

To Sazh, and by extension Lightning, it is about as familiar as putting on a coat. Any particular mannerisms had long since been stomped out of their bodies courtesy of their service in the military. They can walk into a crowd and become nothing more than a couple of silhouettes with strangely perfect posture. It helps, too, that their L'Cie marks are easily concealed.

It doesn't help that no one else in their group seems to grasp the idea. Vanille and Hope are too nervous, gazes fluttering while they stick close to someone else like children in the company of very distant relatives for the day. Every now and then Vanille tugs at her skirt, or Hope shoves his hands into his pockets, and no matter how many times Sazh tells them that will actually draw more attention he knows they can't help it. Even Lightning doesn't scold them--she lets one of them walk beside her so she can hide the mark.

Fang is entirely too confident. Being about Lightning's age and height with none of the discipline would be bad enough, but she is a person who is used to showing herself off without even trying. Sometimes Sazh thinks she does try, after seeing her smirk at a man in full view of Lightning. The resulting glare-down hadn't done much to help matters, and neither had Lightning's tirade once they were out of the city.

As for Snow... The guy just wasn't built for blending in.

Today is different. Sazh looks around at everyone in their group while Lightning scans the crowd and decides that he likes what he sees. Snow is keeping his head down and his mouth shut. Fang is not acknowledging any of the interested glances she recieves for once. The two youngest members are relaxed, even if they're a little more quiet than they usually are. After a moment, just to make sure, he follows Lightning's gaze. It roves steadily back and forth, with every tilt of the head choreographed to look natural.

After picking up her rhythm Sazh staggers his so that he's looking left while she's looking right. It's rush hour, about three-thirty, so while all the citizens are too busy to pay attention to them the crush makes their progress very slow going. Since they'll be spending more time than usual here, he thinks about asking Lightning if they can stop by a grocer and restock and finds fruit stalls tucked into a narrow, tree-lined street.

When Sazh reaches out to tap her on the shoulder her gaze is stilled, a little to the right of the market. Speaking quietly so no one else will hear and possibly panic, he asks instead: "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing." How Lightning tears her gaze away from whatever it is directly contradicts this.

"Well, it must have been something if--"

"But Mo-ommm..."

The little girl's voice would have drawn Sazh's attention even if Lightning hadn't been looking there. As it is, the rest of the world blurs into a wash of gray and brown while Sazh watches. A flicker of red in the corner of his eye signals that Lightning is still there as well. The mother cluck in disapproval.

"No, honey, that's loaded with sugar."

"But it's good!"

Sazh doesn't see if the girl's long black hair is in pigtails or a single braid tossed over one shoulder, and the mother's response is lost when Fang stops and calls, "Oi! Something interesting back there?"

"No, nothing!" Even for him, the tone is too bright. Fang narrows her kohl-rimmed eyes at them before shrugging and gesturing for them to speed up. Sazh heaves a sigh and touches Lightning's uncovered shoulder. "Come on, Lightning..."

The muscles snap to attention. She shrugs him off and takes a step in the wrong direction, eyes shell-shocked wide, before the tense energy in her back melts away with force of habit and she hurries to brings up the rear of the group. For once they can do this without worrying about leaving Fang and Snow in the front--it's a welcome change, but something not so nice is how Sazh doesn't feel like talking to anyone. He tries not to freak out over it.

"You're shaking." Lightning controls her voice with the same iron grip that she uses on every other part of her. Sazh can tell without looking at anyone else that the words haven't carried further than his hearing.

He shrugs. "Cold, I guess."

If it had been anyone else, they would have called Sazh out on the ridiculousness of him being the first to feel cold when such people as Fang and Vanille are with them. And, if anyone else had said that to Lightning, he gets the feeling that she would have done that too. Instead she reaches out with the hand she uses to tweak gravity with a snap and grips his shoulder. "Don't let it get to you."

This is not a series of transparent lies but a code, Sazh realizes as she moves to the front of the group. Something has loosened in her stride; her not-quite-covered legs don't escape the gaze of those spurned by Fang this time. To crack the code he lists all the context.

They were both looking at that girl and her mother. Lightning's expression when she told him it was nothing meant the same thing as being cold, and when Sazh said he was cold he'd actually meant that he'd seen himself and his son in those two. But she was way too young to be a parent, unless that sister she was always talking about was the one she'd seen...

Things are suddenly so clear that Sazh stumbles.

"What?" Lightning asks.

"Tripped over a rock or something," he mumbles. That feels like a lie, especially since Lightning looks cranky instead of understanding. She doesn't get to call him out this time either, since Fang beats her to it.

"You two are really clumsy today! What the hell were you two staring at?"

"Nothing." It comes from both their mouths, doubling the skepticism. But Fang shrugs when Lightning glares.

"All right. But if nothing comes back to bite us in the arse, I told you so. And I'm spearing you through the chests with my spear."

"So nice," Lightning growls.

"And incredibly helpful," Sazh adds.

"Hey, you got any other plans for getting rid of back-stabbers?"

They both roll their eyes at her and the rest of the way through the city is uneventful until Sazh smacks his own forehead. "Aw, man!"

"What?" Evidently Lightning's patience and understanding does not extend to people who stop more than twice in a row.

"I was going to ask you if we could restock or something."

Lightning's irritation gives way to a calculating expression, and then she shakes her head. "We don't need anything that badly. But thanks for reminding me anyway." With that one sentence of gratitude Sazh realizes that their leader's sudden niceness does not mean she has changed. It means that she has given Sazh what Snow is so desperate for--Sazh has gained, almost without trying, Lightning's respect and trust.

As if he'd been thinking out loud, Sazh glances over at the blond but sees nothing unusual in Snow's generally cheerful expression. That more than anything makes him feel guilty.

-  
"Sazh."

"Ack!" His pistols are out before he can think about it. Lightning jumps up and stays there, hanging upside down under the tree he's using for cover while Sazh carefully returns his guns to their holsters--he hadn't been touching the triggers, but the safety was off. "Damn it, you scared me!"

"Sorry." She flips and lands, hair and clothes settling down with the slow grace of being underwater.

"Also, what's the point of putting people on watch if you're just going to wake up and alert them?"

"Alert...? Oh, no--it's all clear." The fact that she'd scouted anyway grates a little, until Sazh realizes that paranoid people wouldn't be this calm about an all-clear--they'd say it was too quiet, or something. So it must have been out of habit.

"So, if this isn't to alert me then what is it?" Before she can answer Sazh frowns. "Wait a second--are you socializing?"

"No, damn it. I just wanted to ask you something."

"Ask away, then."

Lightning sighs, then sits down under the tree as the last of the glowing energy fades from her body. She stares into the crooks of her arms before asking, "What were you thinking when you saw them?"

"Oh. Well." Sazh laughs a little and takes Hina out. She barely twitches before settling into his hand. "I was thinking about Hina, actually. She used to be my son's pet, Dajh. Now... I guess she's mine."

Lightning pokes at the yellow fluff like a shy cat, and only catches Hina because of her reflexes when Sazh overturns his palm. "Hey!" Her hands are long but slender for all the brass on her gloves, and she cups her hands awkwardly while the chicobo stretches awake. "None of that," she says sternly when Hina gives a confused peep. "I don't like chocobos, no matter how small and fat they are."

"All right!" Sazh retrieves the chicobo from Lightning's uncertain hands and Hina nestles back into his hair. He waits for Lightning to say something, then remembers she isn't the type to fill up silences and asks, "So what were you thinking about when you saw them?"

Lightning is so pale that even in the darkness he can see the tilt of her chin while she stares at her hands. Out of habit she flexes her fingers, even though they're broken in. "I was thinking about my sister."

"You, uh..." Sazh wonders how to ask someone if their parents are dead. "You never talk about your parents. They die on you?"

"Our dad, when we were too young to remember much. It was our mom, when I was fifteen. Serah was twelve." Lightning's grief seems broken in like her gloves but Sazh still feels uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." She shifts and runs her hands through her hair. How she doesn't catch it on her gloves is a mystery. "We turned out just fine."

"Oh, yeah?" Sazh doesn't dare use sarcasm--that's Fang's job. Anyway, questioning a young single mother (or big sister) on the way she's raising her kid (or little sister) is grounds for a good mangling at the very least. And getting mangled by Lightning is Snow's job. "What was she like?"

"She got into Eden University."

Sazh whistles. "Did you get in, too?" When her proud-big-sister smile drops he starts thinking about ways to get out of reach before she can stab him, shoot him, or mangle him like she seems to like doing to Snow. Then she shakes her head and he relaxes a little. "What'd I say?"

"Nothing. Just... The way we were planning it..." Lightning might be quiet, but she's not shy. So when her words come out choked and stilted it sounds like an entirely different person. "By the time I would have been done with my service and sent in my application... We would have been in college for almost all four years."

"That's..." Now Sazh feels like a jerk for wasting his apology earlier. There's nothing else he can say right now, and just repeating what he said feels cheap.

"It was my fault," she tells him. "I wasn't spending enough time with her because of work... So I told her, 'Once I'm done with this I'll be around so often you'll get sick of me.'"

If it were anyone else he would have put a hand on her shoulder or something, but since it's Lightning Sazh decides changing the subject is a better idea. "Was she like you? Pretty... independent?"

"No." She swipes at her eyes like a lion, but seems grateful for the shift. "I mean, she wasn't a pushover! I made sure of that. But whenever I was home I'd spoil her rotten. She always had new clothes and friends over, and the bathroom would smell like a peach orchard when she was done. I told her _once_ that her peach perfume annoyed me, and she got a whole product line to piss me off."

"Man--I am _terrified_ of the day my son gets old enough to have friends." Lightning makes a sound mixed between a laugh and a cry, but Sazh hopes it's more of the first. Not getting her angry this time was dumb luck, even though they're... more than just preferred working partners, if not actually friends. Then he looks at the sky and remembers: "Oh--sorry, but I just remembered I should really get back to doing my job, now."

"No, it's fine." Lightning stands up and brushes herself off. "I'll check and see if the others have been killed in extremely silent ways."

When Sazh is finished with the watch and steals back into camp, none of the others are dead--just sleeping. After waking up Vanille, who never seems fazed no matter how late it is, he glances over at Lightning. Her vest, bag, weapon, and gloves are in a neat pile within arm's reach, the way any good soldier would place them.

He tries to focus, but he still can't see what Lightning looks like under all that steel.


	2. Soldiers

Note: Military slang is fuunnnn. Google it. Also, there is a Trigun reference and a fair bit of gun research. However, I don't know if there are giant owls in Pulse--if there aren't, I ask you to kindly pretend that there are.

**Needle in the Hay**  
_Soldiers_

The changes come quietly like dropping pins, so Sazh has to keep his eyes open. He knows he must still be missing things because to keep Lightning from noticing he has to use peripheral vision--as a sharpshooter and pilot he doesn't trust that much. But it surprises him, the things he does see.

He watches her on Pulse as they trek through the tall grass. The stalks bend but rarely break as they do with Fang or Snow, and she doesn't move as noisily as the younger ones. This is stealth training, but something still feels a little different. She never cuts a swath unless it's absolutely necessary, either, which means a lot of bugs and burrs on their clothes. Except for Snow, who's too tall to be inconvenienced much. While the others are complaining, Sazh asks her about it.

"Even if there's no one here, I don't want to leave a trail for just anyone to follow," is the sharp reply. That silences everyone, but Sazh thinks this is almost too practical. She's not that paranoid.

They finally reach a spot with different plants, giant stalks with white dandelion puffs that make it look like they're above a strip of clouds. The taller ones are now at a disadvantage--the soft white fuzz scatters around their shoulders. Vanille and Hope go into the front and bend the stalks out of the way, easily passing under the seeds. Luckily they're going across a narrow part--it takes barely half an hour for them to get out, and by the time they're into some nice regular woods everyone is relieved.

Vanille combs some stray seeds out of Hope's hair and laughs at Fang, now snarling and clawing at her own hair. Sazh had been in the back behind Snow, so he just brushes what little there is on him away from his coat and looks for Lightning. Their leader is a little way off to the side, already finished, and while he watches a ball of seeds drifts in front of her.

She catches it, staring, and it hovers undamaged before a stray gust of wind blows it out of her hands. Vanille shrieks as the seeds blow in exactly their direction, and Snow claps his hands to Hope's ears just in time to keep Fang's loud swear from being heard. In the confusion Sazh forgets about what he'd seen, and when he does remember it's too late for him to bring it up without sounding weird.

- - -  
"Sazh! I need help here!"

They're at least thirty, forty feet away from each other in the already crowded hallway, but that's the closest anyone is to Lightning and her Blaze Edge has been knocked out of her hands. Sazh sees her glowing in an attempt to avoid her attackers and get it back, but she can't dodge forever. He reloads a pistol and runs through the enemy crowd--when Lightning hangs upside down and holds out an arm, he throws it to her. With the borrowed gun she manages to retrieve her own weapon in seconds and they're close enough for her to just pass it back to him. Things would be peachy if Vanille hadn't been knocked out trying to revive Hope. Sazh and Lightning take out the surrounding soldiers in a hurry and then drag the two teenagers into a room--Lightning makes quick work of the few troops in there before Sazh locks and barricades the door.

"Guys!" Snow yells. The tall blond and Fang are still out there. Even though it's unfair, Sazh is a little less worried about them.

"Damn it..." Lightning reloads her Blaze Edge with a deep frown and Sazh does the same for his pistols (without the frown). "You'll have to go back out there and get them. I'll hold this end."

"Right."

"Are they good?"

"They're good," Sazh answers after checking their pulses, which are a little fluttery but strong. "Just--ugh! All the times she could've picked to get knocked out, and she does it right before getting Hope running!"

Lightning sighs. "I know _you_ don't mean that." She stands up and kicks a chair away from the door, holding the knob. Sazh pinches the bridge of his nose before getting up and taking position. "On three. One... Two... Three--"

Sazh readies his pistols when she yanks the door open, then drops his arms as he finds himself aiming at Fang and Snow. "What the hell!"

"All clear, mates!" Fang carols.

Lightning peers out between the two cautiously, but Sazh can see for himself that the hallway is clear. "And how did _that_ happen?" Her tone is very accusing, which is understandable.

"Um." Snow laughs and rubs the back of his neck. "They got orders to retreat, I guess. How are Hope and Vanille?"

"Fine." Sazh finally manages to relax and holsters his guns. "Just out, for now."

Hope stirs and Snow runs over to him. "Hey, buddy! You feeling okay?"

"Y-yeah..." The boy sits up and rubs a spot on the back of his head. His fingers come away smeared with red. "Ah!"

"You'll be fine." It's not Snow who answers, but Lightning as she lets Fang in and closes the door securely. "Once Vanille wakes up, anyway."

"Vanille?" Fang crouches next to her friend and prods at a temple. "I think I broke a couple of ribs back there so it'd be nice if you could, you know, wake up _now._"

"Hope could have a concussion!" Lightning snaps, although there is a large bruise on Fang's side that isn't completely covered by her sari. "Not to mention Vanille, too."

"Well, it's worth a shot. Oi! Vanille!"

"Would you be _quiet_ for once?" Lightning only barely manages to keep her own voice lower than Fang's. Sazh might be less uptight, but he's no saint and that accent is annoying as hell in times like these. "Just because they retreated doesn't mean they're all _gone!_"

"_Fine!_" Fang sits down next to Vanille, winces, and lays her spear across her lap to start collapsing it. They hear her grumbling, "Military people... don't know why I decided... _killjoys,_ all of them..."

Snow and Hope shrink, trying to become invisible as time drags on. Vanille finally wakes up about ten painful minutes later, but once she is the room seems that much brighter. After some concentration, everyone's wounds are healed and when they clear out of the building they don't run into any enemy soldiers. Snow and Fang are sticking close to their young friends, so that leaves Lightning next to Sazh. Once they're in a thinner part of the crowd she tells him, "Good job, by the way."

"What?"

Lightning rolls her eyes. "I _said,_ you did a good job."

"Is this all from you, or did Vanille--"

"Is it so hard to believe I think you're competent?" Lightning retorts. "I would have been in trouble if you hadn't been that quick on your feet."

"Really?"

"_Yes._" Sazh shrugs and looks away, which is when she goes on: "For a jock who spent most of his time in the air."

"Well, for a non-com who never shot a real gun in her life you're a pretty good shot!" He holds a hand up against her protests. "And if it doesn't have a working trigger one hundred percent of the time, guess what? It ain't a real gun. So go on and try to shoot me with that over sized penknife of yours."

"You--" Before Sazh knows it, Lightning's laughter rings out like words in a language he hadn't known she could _understand,_ much less speak fluently. Instead of joining in he stares. "You're a--"

"What the bloody _hell?_" They turn at the sound of Fang's voice to see their entire group has stopped in their tracks. Besides the surprise everyone else is showing, Snow has an expression of absolute terror. "Did you just make her _laugh,_ Sazh? An actual, honest-to-goodness laugh?"

"Yeah_,_" Lightning tells them. "He did." She turns back around and motions for everyone to keep following her.

They obey numbly, except for Sazh. He drops back and taps Snow on one massive shoulder. "What's wrong with _you?_"

"She sounds..." The blond looks down, still obviously in shock from what's just happened. "Serah sounds _just_ like that when she laughs."

Cliffs make Sazh nervous. This surprises people, but there's a difference between flying over gorges with a solid airship around him and standing on the edge with his own two feet. Being up in the air is pretty much like driving a car--pilots keep their eyes _up_ and _ahead _so they don't screw up royally. The only good thing about this is the fact that Sazh gets so hyped up he can't fall asleep on accident while on the late watch. Otherwise he's pretty handicapped--he feels like turning his back on the gorge will give it an opening to grow wider. So far it hasn't moved, but someone else gets the drop on him. "What's wrong?"

"Lightning?" He glances over his shoulder to see her, fully dressed and armed except for her gloves. "I could _not_ have been loud enough to wake you up. The camp's too far."

She shrugs. "I couldn't go back to sleep and I saw you pacing. What's up?"

"Nah. I just hate cliffs." He goes further into the safe zone and sits down, fixing his eyes on the edge. He half-expects what she's going to say and tells her, "Before you say something like 'Don't you fly airships for a living?' I'll let you know there ain't no way for pilots to look down." He's a little snappier than usual but Lightning doesn't seem to notice. "Unless they can see through floors or something."

"Still..." Lightning perches next to him, following his gaze to the edge. In a second, she turns back to him with a smoothness Sazh envies. "You go up knowing there's a pretty long fall every time."

"But I can control _that_," Sazh points out. "I can't control cliffs."

"Ah." She sighs and looks at her right hand. "I wonder why they give these to soldiers instead of pilots. I think they'd come in handy."

"Not really." Now he has to explain another pilot thing to a non-pilot. "I mean, we got parachutes for that--and if you can't get out of the airship you'd still be screwed. There's plenty of ways to ruin an exit."

"But wouldn't--"

"You know what happens when a car starts sinking in a lake?" She looks at him like a cat who's just missed a bird. Sazh goes on, "It's like that, but with air instead of water. 'Ships don't always fall right side up, you know, and it's really hard to open the doors by hand. Better to just steer it down and hope it breaks your fall instead of crushing you."

"_Fine._ Sorry I asked." She rests her chin on a wrist and looks at the moonless sky. "How did you get over knowing you had a good chance of dying painfully every time you went on a job?"

"Same way you did. By being so damn good at it I felt invincible."

That gets a smile out of Lightning. She hasn't laughed since that one time, which doesn't surprise him. But Sazh _is_ surprised by how easy it is to make her smile. "_Invincible_, huh?"

"Like a god." Right after he says this, some giant owls swoop down on them and whatever Lightning was about to say turns into a scream.

- - -  
"She'll be all right in a bit," Vanille says. While she finishes healing up the deep gouges on Lightning's arms and shoulders, Sazh holds a wad of gauze to his own arm. It's painful, but Lightning had lost enough blood to pass out. "I guess they went at her more because she's so visible at night."

"Did she do that thing where she woke up and alerted _you?_" Fang asks. She'd been the one to drag Lightning back to camp while Hope and Snow chased off the owls, and she seems pretty cranky. Sazh tries to think of a way to answer that won't give her the wrong idea, which leaves his options outside of staying quiet pretty slim. But then the black-haired woman goes on, "She did, didn't she? Those were_ owls_. They're the bleeding _ninjas_ of the bird world. Unless, you know, I'm right and Lightning doesn't sleep at all."

"No, but she heard me yelling when they got in the first shot."

Lightning's breathing settles into a normal rhythm and Vanille sighs. "Okay. Fang, could you take Lightning back to camp? I'm going for Hope and Snow after I heal Sazh."

"Sazh!" Lightning sits up, eyes darting around before settling on him.

"None of that, mate, he's fine." Fang slings an arm over her shoulder and hauls the taller woman up. "Miss I'll-put-you-on-watch-and-then-do-half-the-watching-myself."

"My Blaze Edge," Lightning goes on. "The cloth's in my bag--clean it off before you put it back in the holster."

"Done." Sazh holds his arm out with relief.

"Figures." Fang snarls when Lightning goes limp. "You are not helping, you bloody _giant._"

"Be nice, Fang," Vanille says, more focused on closing up the gash than her friend's retort that their leader can't even hear her. After that, the healer sends Sazh to the fire after Snow offers to take up the last half of his shift. Sazh picks up the pile of things that Vanille took off before healing Lightning, and digs around in the bag once he's back. Fang looks up at him, grumbles, and rolls over to go back to sleep. He feels extra rounds, Lightning's gloves, a zipper in the back, and something that feels like her wallet before he reaches something thin and takes it out.

It's not a cloth, though. Even in the dim glow of banked coals Sazh can see it's the back of a picture. A small, curly word labels it _"Homecoming". _Even without the smiley face next to it, he can tell it's not Lightning's handwriting. He turns it around to see two people--a skinny, almost brown-haired girl who has to be Serah. She's waving at the camera in a floaty blue dress with matching slippers. Lightning is in a more dignified white shirt and black knee-length skirt, resting her hands on Serah's shoulders. With the four or five inches Lightning has on Serah and the difference in poses, they look more like mother and daughter.

Sazh puts it back before anyone sees him and opens the zippered pocket to find the cloth for Lightning's Blaze Edge. It's bad luck to talk about family on the battlefield.

For people who've just been ambushed by a pack of hungry wolves, they're doing pretty good. A lot better than the owl thing, at least. Lightning has Hope behind her and she's keeping the wolves off at range--or at least, she was the last time Sazh checked. Just a few minutes after that, he looks back and finds her slashing at the things instead. They're too close and too many for comfort, so Sazh clears a path to her and asks, "What's going on?"

"My Blaze Edge--I don't know what the hell's wrong with it!"

"Should we retreat?"

Lightning gives him a tense nod. "Stay here with Hope--I'll get the others." She snaps, then dashes almost literally over the pack, and they all beat a hasty getaway. Everyone's fine, though.

As a fellow gunslinger, Sazh feels bad for Lightning. He follows and watches through the mind-numbing process of accuracy checking. First she cleans it thoroughly, then carves an X into some unfortunate tree for target practice. She borrows a pistol from him and hits the bulls eye at around twenty yards--he privately takes back what he said, considering hers is more of a shotgun. After that's done, Lightning takes her Blaze Edge to just ten yards and shoots three rounds with at least thirty seconds between them. She halfheartedly moves back five yards before sighing, emptying the chamber, and checking the tree.

"How bad is it?" Sazh asks.

"About..." She squints at the cluster of bullet holes. "Three inches from ten yards."

"_Damn._" Sazh holds a hand out. "I know this is kind of like... watching a train wreck, but can I see?"

Lightning puts a round back in and gives it to him. "It veers to the left. You want a fresh target?"

"Nah, I'm cool." He takes up a spot ten yards from the tree, sights the battered X, and nudges the barrel to the right before shooting. It hits the center, but that just proves Lightning's point. "Again_. Damn._"

"Aww, what's wrong with Lightning's gun?" Predictably, it's Fang poking her nose in.

"We don't know," Sazh answers. "You got it tuned up regularly back when you were in PSICOM, right?"

"Yeah, and before I left I got the hammer and cylinder changed. The problems just started today."

"Well, mates, I don't know anything about gun maintenance so I'll leave you two alone." Fang turns around, then turns back almost instantly. "Although... I _do_ know a thing or two about sharp pointy objects with moving bits. Maybe something happened while you were using it as a sword."

Lightning frowns. "But, I always shoot first--"

"Yeah. You _always_ shoot first." The black-haired woman gives a shrug before walking off to camp. "I'm just saying, mate." The scowl is deeper than ever on Lightning's face. Once Fang is out of earshot, she switches the weapon to sword mode and studies it for a long time in the softened afternoon light. After setting it on her arm she lets it hang by her side in a loose grip, then pinches the bridge of her nose with her other hand.

"Is she right?" Sazh asks, even though he knows the answer already.

"She's right. The alignment's off." Lightning holds it up with another long sigh, so Sazh can see a very, very slight bend in a piece near the middle of the blade. "I don't know how we're going to get it fixed, though. There aren't a lot of gunsmiths trained to repair Blaze Edges, and even if we were allowed into a shop it'll be really expensive any... way." When she directs her gaze on him, Sazh instinctively takes a step back.

"Lightning, I'm no gunsmith. And even if I was, you just said it--I don't know a thing about swords."

"No, but you _do_ have an Eidolon who uses fire. And my Blaze Edge is just bent a little, Sazh--it's not _rocket science._"

"Huh." Sazh takes out his crystal and stares at it for a minute. "Now you put it that way... Let's hope we don't melt it down."

After very careful instructions and an even more careful follow-through from Brynhildr, they wait about half an hour for the Blaze Edge to cool off before Lightning picks it up. She sets it on her arm again, and her expression gives away nothing. Another X is carved into the much-abused tree, then Lightning walks off to twenty yards and fires without adjusting. Sazh checks the bulls eye while she holsters it, since the sunlight's fading fast, but even before he gives the verdict there's relief in the way she stands.

"Dead center," Sazh calls.

From twenty yards away against the sunset, he can't see Lightning smile. But he knows what it looks like by now and that fills in the blanks. "Thank you."


End file.
